Flashes of Life
by monkaholic
Summary: Spencer remembers the last 86 years of his life.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing

**Warnings:** Contains character death

**Author's Note:** Spencer/Sam is the endgame pairing, mentions of Sam/Freddie and Carly/Freddie. This was basically written to satisfy my own curiosity about Spencer's backstory (and futurestory), and this format just seemed to work for that. Didn't mean to get heavy, but hopefully it has plenty of happy to cancel out the heaviness.

* * *

They say that your entire life flashes before your eyes just before you die, like someone sat on the fast forward button and fell asleep and you're shouting "Hey man!" and throwing popcorn at him but he just won't wake up and you're missing the whole movie, and you feel cheated even though you've already seen it a hundred times. Or, well, Spencer imagined it would be something like that if it had actually happened. But it didn't. They were wrong. Who exactly "they" were Spencer didn't know, but they were _so_ wrong.

Maybe it was because it took him four months to die. Maybe it… _prolonged_ the whole flashing of the life process? Or maybe it was because he had just turned 86 not long before his death and his fragile brain couldn't take such an onslaught of life-flashing in mere seconds, so instead he spent four long months remembering everything that made him… _him_. Or maybe the flashing of his life was carefully sculpted over those four months, so that when his moment to leave the world finally came, it seemed somehow beautiful.

It didn't start with his first memory of life. He couldn't even remember what his first memory of life was. Wait… if he couldn't remember the first thing he remembered remembering, then did he even _have_ a first memory? _Mind blowing_. You know, if he still had a brain. Which he didn't. At least, he didn't think so. Maybe he did. Anyway, it started with the day that Carly was born. He remembered the excitement, the teary-eyed smiles of his parents, the disappointment when he held Carly for the first time and she didn't do anything that was worth all the excitement, the awe he felt when she stretched in his arms and yawned with all of her tiny little might, his proud smile when he looked up at his mother as Carly latched onto his finger when he put it in her little hand, the fleeting thought he had about how tired his mother looked and the feeling that she wasn't supposed to be that pale, the feel of his mother's soft kiss and her tears on his forehead as he said goodbye to her for the very last time. His father was a wreck after she died. Spencer remembered blaming Carly for all of it. If Carly hadn't been born, then his mother would still be there with her ridiculous (yet totally awesome) lullabies about vegetables and garden hoses, and his father wouldn't be staring blankly through a nursery window wondering how he was going to survive without the love of his life. Spencer walked up to his father and silently stood next to him. They just watched Carly sleeping, resenting her and loving her all at the same time. After awhile, Carly started fidgeting and she wasn't satisfied until she had stuck her whole fist into her mouth, and it made Spencer laugh. He felt his father's hand on his shoulder, and when he looked up at him, his father smiled, and Spencer knew everything would be okay. Carly had saved them, in her strange, beautiful way.

In the next memory, he was back in his tenth grade art class. His teacher, Miss Peddiford, had this crazy frizzy hair that she had dyed half pink and half purple because she couldn't decide between the two colors. Spencer had loved her the second he saw her. He remembered her assigning this project where he was supposed to create a piece of art that represented everything important in his life. Most kids did a painting or a drawing, but Spencer actually took physical objects from his life and glued them together in the shape of a mini him. One of his father's medals, Carly's hospital bracelet from when she was born, the broken control from his Nintendo, an empty Pepsi bottle, a sock that his best friend Socko had given him of Christmas trees that lit up, a low fat Fat Cakes wrapper, and right in the center of it all he had put a picture of himself and his mother dressed up as old time bank robbers. Miss Peddiford had given him an A+ and a book about modern sculpting. He had been fascinated by the book, had even gone to a pop culture art exhibit during spring break, but he had sort of forgotten about it when he met Lucy Hayes and she told him that she liked musicians...

The next one was about Sam. It was the first day he had met her. She was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter and was devouring a piece of ham. He had just shrugged and wrote her off as being one of Carly's little friends. As he closed the door to the apartment and dropped his suitcases on the floor, he shouted, "Carly, I'm home!" in the fashion of Desi Arnez from _I Love Lucy_. Carly always got a kick out of that. He paused, waiting for the sound of her excitedly running down the stairs to greet him, but he heard nothing. He looked at the young girl again. She was still sitting there eating ham like it was something she was born to do. Curious, he walked towards her and said, "Hey." She looked up briefly and nodded at him. Spencer held back a laugh and asked, "Where's Carly?" The girl just shrugged without looking up at him. Spencer reached over to get a piece of ham for himself, and he got a little scared when a look of pure _rage_ came over the girl's face as she grabbed his hand and screamed out a sort of war cry. "Uh oh…" he whispered. The little girl jumped off her stool and flipped him over, his shoulder cracking as he hit the ground. She had her knee on his chest and his wrists pinned to the ground, her eyes fierce. "That was… unexpected," Spencer uttered, not sure why there was more awe in his voice than anything else. At that very moment, Carly and his father walked through the door and Carly casually said, "Hey, Sam. Spencer… you tried to take her ham, didn't you?"

Then there was the memory of Spencer fighting with his grandfather about dropping out of law school. He just didn't excel at law. It was boring. And the other kids made fun of his briefcase (those spray-painted flames had been _awesome_, okay?). Sam had overheard the fight and plopped down next to him on the couch after his grandfather left. Spencer was angry at himself for being a disappointment, angry at his grandfather for making him feel like a disappointment, scared because he had no idea where his future would take him, doubting his decision to leave law school, still kind of bitter about the insults that his briefcase had garnered, but then Sam sighed and put her hand on his shoulder as she told him in her freakishly-wise-beyond-her-eleven-years voice, "Look. Just be who you are and do what makes you happy, and don't take crap from anybody. You only live once, right?" He looked at her and she smiled up at him with all the confidence in the world, and somehow Spencer knew that everything would be okay. "Do you have any fried chicken?" And _that_ was the Sam that he knew.

Next he remembered teaching Carly how to drive. Sam and Freddie were in the back seat fighting with each other, as usual. The only difference now was that their fights usually ended with them making out. Which disturbed him. Greatly. Especially when he was stuck in a car with them. So he kind of overcompensated in the teaching department and made Carly nervous, and they ended up running into a stop sign. To put it simply, Carly wasn't happy with him. She took lessons from Sam's mom after that. And that scared him, but it all turned out okay. Only… Carly developed a tendency to honk her horn and flick off anyone that got in her way.

Graduation. He had been so ridiculously proud of Carly on Graduation Day that he got in trouble for running up to the stage and snapping a billion pictures as she took that momentous walk to accept her diploma. She had been valedictorian. Beat Freddie by one point. Normally Freddie would have been sulking, but he was still a little bit in love with Carly, so his smile was just as big as Spencer's during Carly's valedictorian speech (a speech that she had totally freaked about the night before). At one point he found himself watching Sam. She was crying a little, but trying to hide it with a smile. It shocked him, but at the same time, it really didn't.

The summer after Carly's graduation. Spencer had been working on his latest sculpture (a giant turtle made out of ashtrays), when he heard Sam slip through the door and plop down onto his couch. He didn't exactly look at her, but he knew it was her from that familiar scent in the air of vanilla perfume and barbecued ribs. A strange yet surprisingly pleasant combination. And then he heard a sniffle, and he popped his head around the turtle and saw that her nose was red and she had this forlorn expression on her face. It kind of broke his heart, to see her look so defeated. She was _Sam_. Strong, ready-to-rip-you-apart-if-you-look-at-he

r-the-wrong-way Sam. He spoke her name and she flinched, then looked at him and shouted "Jesus, Spencer!" It made him smile a little for some reason. He sat down next to her, and after a moment of staring at her, trying to figure her out, her lip started to shake, and without hesitation he put his arm around her and she melted into him, crying softly, wiping her nose on his chest. That… was kind of gross, but it wasn't his favorite shirt anyway. After awhile she pulled away from him and said, "Thanks, Spence," as she gave him a watery smile. For the first time, Spencer was acutely aware of just how beautiful she was. "Anytime," he answered, and she left, good as new. He didn't find out until later that she and Freddie had broken up.

The airport, when Carly was leaving for college. NYU. He put on a brave face as he said his goodbye, but he was pretty sure he had never known the real meaning of heartbreak until he watched her hand her ticket over and go through the terminal door with one last excited smile and wave thrown his way before she left him for a whole new life. He didn't realize that he had been crying until he felt a soft squeeze on his shoulder, and Sam's voice in his ear saying, "Hey, don't worry, Big Guy. We'll be fine. We've still got each other, right?" He looked down at her and was met with her shaky smile, all the confidence in the world shining in her beautiful eyes, and somehow Spencer knew that everything would be okay.

The night that Socko went on a date with Sam. That was… awkward. Spencer and Sam had gotten closer over the year when Carly and Freddie had gone off to college. Sam had decided to go to community college so that she could stay in Seattle and take care of her mother (who had had a stroke). She worked at Groovie Smoothie in the evenings and Spencer had developed a habit of needing a smoothie during just about every one of her shifts. He was lonely without Carly, and the apartment felt so empty without Sam threatening to kill Freddie every 5 minutes. Eventually, every Friday night, Sam had started going home with Spencer to watch movies after her shift ended. It was their thing. Movie night. They'd eat popcorn and cheeseburgers and gummy bears and laugh together as they mocked old horror movies (usually he hated scary movies, but they were Sam's favorite, and she made them fun. You know, instead of scary, nightmare-inducing monstrosities). Occasionally Sam would put her hand on his leg, or they'd lean into each other, or she'd put her feet on his lap and fall asleep, and it just felt… right. Righter than anything he'd ever known. Her laugh became his favorite sound in the world. He'd smile in the supermarket whenever he passed the strawberries because it reminded him of her, the way the smell of the strawberry smoothies always lingered in her hair long after she'd closed Groovie Smoothie for the night. He found himself saying no to dates because it meant he'd have to skip his nightly ritual of visiting Sam, and his day just wasn't complete if he didn't get to see her. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but he had fallen for her, and it had freaked him out, but it was… _right_ somehow. And he was going to tell her all of that. He was. He even put on his tuxedo and he was going to surprise Sam and take her to Beef Palace instead of having their typical movie night, but when he entered Groovie Smoothie, he saw Socko talking to Sam, and he was showing her his coolest socks ever, and… Spencer could never compete with those socks. Ever. Especially when he saw how bright Sam's smile was when he heard Socko ask her out. To Beef Palace. Spencer felt this annoying lump in his throat and he slipped out the door unnoticed, and he ran home and ripped off his tuxedo and cried into his pillow like he was a 5 year old. He felt stupid. A couple hours later there had been a knock on his door, and he answered it wearing nothing but his undershirt and boxers. His heart was too shattered to care, anyway. But when he lifted his head, he caught the sight of a smiling Sam holding a Beef Palace bag in one hand and DVDs in another, a pleased smile on her face.

"What? You didn't really think I'd miss movie night, did you?" She looked him up and down and smirked as she said, "Love the new attire, by the way. Although I kind of miss the tuxedo."

The slow smile that had been creeping across Spencer's face faltered and he said, "Wait… you saw?"

"Yeah, kinda hard to miss a 6 foot 2 dude wearing a tuxedo."

"Right," Spencer said, looking down at his feet. "So you and Socko…"

"Had a nice dinner," she answered plainly.

"Great!" Spencer replied a little too enthusiastically.

"Great," she whispered. She looked down as she softly said, "I kinda wished it was you."

They both looked up at the same moment, and everything they needed to say was showing in their eyes. It turned out that Spencer could totally compete with Socko's coolest socks. In fact, he kicked their asses.

The next memory was Carly's wedding. He was Freddie's best man, and, naturally, Sam was Carly's bridesmaid. He couldn't take his eyes off of her, she looked so magnificent, even in that awful peach colored smock that Carly had chosen for her bridesmaid dresses. He briefly wondered if she still had feelings for Freddie, especially since she couldn't seem to look away from him. He thought he saw pain in her eyes, thoughts of what might have been, but then she locked eyes with Spencer and a certain peace came over her, and she smiled. And Spencer knew then and there that she loved him. Really, really loved him. Even if she hadn't said it yet.

After Sam's mother died, she broke up with him. Said he was too good for her, that he was probably the only reason why she wasn't in prison like the rest of her family. He just held her, let her know in every way that he could that he loved her, and then he let her go. She came back to him a week later, said she hated him because everything reminded her of him, and then she pulled him down into a desperate kiss that told him she never wanted to leave him again. They got married six months later.

His next memory was of the grand opening of his very own art gallery. He had sold enough pieces that he could afford it, and he was excited to give budding young artists like he had once been a chance. He threw in some of his own pieces too, of course. Carly and Freddie had flown in for the special occasion, looking very much like the successful TV news reporters that they were (Carly had even won a fancy award for an in-depth report that she had done on Iran). And Sam was there, too, the smile on her face even bigger than his (if that was even possible).

The next memory took him to the hospital. Sam had had a miscarriage. He was holding her in his arms, mourning the child that they'd never know. She pulled away from him and wiped her nose with her sleeve, and she whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Spencer asked, confused.

"I'm sorry that I can't give you a child."

Spencer felt a pain in his chest, shooting through the numbness that had been there since he found out that he had lost a son. "It's not your fault," he said as he squeezed her shoulder.

"Yes it is. I… I don't want to go through this again. I can't."

Spencer turned her face to him and touched her lips with a soothing kiss, then, with his forehead against hers, he whispered, "We'll be fine. We've still got each other, right?"

She half laughed and half sobbed as he held her chin, and she smiled at him with all the faith in the world.

Two years later, they had a baby girl, Rosa.

The memories of Rosa growing up went by in a blur. 3:00am feedings, potty training, PTA meetings, birthday parties, field trips, interrogating boyfriends, buying her the perfect Christmas gifts, vacations gone wrong (seriously, why did they ever listen to Sam's family's suggestions?), visiting colleges, graduation (high school and college), the wedding, grandchildren. She made them better people, somehow. They lived for her, and there wasn't a moment that went by when they weren't proud of everything that she was.

And then there was their 50th wedding anniversary. Sam and Spencer had wanted something small, but Rosa had decided to throw them a big to-do. Spencer tried to act grumpy, but he never did get that "grumpy old man" thing down pat. Sam was ecstatic to have the whole family together again, and really, so was Spencer. Things were happy, peaceful, although the absence of Carly left a piece of his heart empty. He knew it was the same for Sam. It wasn't right, that she was the first one to go. Cancer. Freddie was barely surviving without her, but he made a valiant effort for Sam and Spencer's anniversary, and Spencer loved him for that.

When the doctor told Spencer that he only had a few months to live, he was scared. He wasn't ready to go. Those months were agony. He felt useless, the pain was too much to bear sometimes, but the thought of leaving Sam behind scared him more than anything. She had sat by his side through it all, holding his hand, making him laugh whenever he thought laughter was no longer possible. One day, when he started feeling suffocated by the silence that had fallen between them, he said in all seriousness, "I want to be buried in my pajamas."

Sam gave him a tired smile and said, "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

"I want to be comfortable in my casket."

"Obviously. …I want to be buried with a ham."

"What?"

"I don't want to be hungry in my casket."

"That's a good idea, actually. Throw a ham in mine, too."

"Will do," she said softly, giving him a half smile.

He closed his eyes and sighed painfully. "I can't leave you," he whispered.

"Sure you can."

His eyes popped open and he looked at her incredulously.

"You have to," she amended. "But don't worry, I'll find you eventually. I always do." She smiled at him with all the confidence in the world, and somehow Spencer knew she'd be okay.


End file.
